Top 5 Free Online Learning Resources for Entrepreneurs

I get inspired by some online courses provided by different platforms. This post aims to resume which platforms that I use regularly to find inspiring content that feed my curiosity and my will to grow my online businesses.

Edx is a free online Mooc. What I found interesting about Edx is that they have a course catalog from prestigious universities, such as Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Cornell, Mcgill… They have some great professors featured as well as interesting guest speakers.

One course that I would recommend from Edx is CS 50, Introduction to computer science. David J. Malan takes you through lots of interesting stuff what will introduce you to computer science. He will teach you how to think like a computer. And he also, with his guest speakers, cover topics such as coding languages, algorithms, security and cryptography.

Coursera is similar to Edx but have a greater variety of online course and partners. Their platform is also generally more user friendly. They differentiate themself in the way that classes are scheduled, so you can only access content during a specific time frame, which can be a constraint for some people. Their intention is great though: Their courses are provided during the in the same time frame that they teach at their respective universities. This allows them to better follow up with their online students.

For entrepreneurs, being able to convey your ideas publicly is such an important skill. Being a great orator can helps to both convince investors and potential customers about your idea. I was recently recommended a Public speaking course from Coursera which I haven’t had yet taken. It says that the class helps you prepares speeches that will be easier to deliver and better understood by your audience.

Udacity mission statement is to “help you stand out, and advance your career in any way. Interesting to know is that among their courses, they have several programming courses created by big companies such as Facebook and Google. Their aim is to help your employment with their courses. Not all the courses are free but I believe it is worth looking at.

Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur for 30 years, has a full course for free on the platform. I personally recommend this course for early stage entrepreneurs that want to understand the best practices to build a business. It will make you think twice about how to define your customers and understand what they want. Find the course on Udacity here.

General assemb.ly is an accelerated learning program which aims at training people through 12 week programs. They cover trainings in among others coding, front end development, design… They also have many webinars and streaming records with their online resources called Front Row. I enjoyed several of their courses as they cover practical cases and examples explained by entrepreneurs.

Note: it is not free but I’ve recommended this here because you can take a 14 day trial subscription which will give you enough time to see some interesting videos.

One course that I found really inspiring is from Alexis Ohanian, Reddit’s cofounder, who shares about his story about how he managed to build one of the biggest online community. His main point is that you should show people how much you care and build something the community will love using, it’s entirely worth it to watch him telling you to do so.

I just found out about the Odin project through a programmer friend. The idea is simple: giving you a path to all free online resources to help you become a programmer. The only thing you need to do is to follow what they tell you to do. With 1000 hours of training and courses, you’ll be enough tech savvy to get a job as a junior programmer or even start your own online business.

I personally like the way the course is structured as they give you interesting goals on each step of your journey Throughout the course, you’ll have fun creating a chess game, imitate Facebook website using Ruby on Rails, as well as creating your website as well as other interesting projects.

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